TY - JOUR
T1 - Cross-border malaria
T2 - a major obstacle for malaria elimination
AU - Wangdi, Kinley
AU - Gatton, Michelle L
AU - Kelly, Gerard C
AU - Clements, Archie C A
N1 - Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Funding Information:
Globally, an estimated 3.4 billion people were at risk of malaria in 2012, with populations living in sub-Saharan Africa having the highest risk of acquiring malaria ( World Health Organization, 2013 ). Approximately 80% of cases and 90% of deaths are estimated to occur in the World Health Organization (WHO) African Region, with children under five years of age and pregnant women being most severely affected ( World Health Organization, 2012; Casalino et al., 2002; Martens and Hall, 2000; World Health Organization, 2013 ). WHO estimated that 207 million cases of malaria occurred in 2012 (uncertainty range 135–287 million) and 627,000 deaths (uncertainty range 473,000–789,000) ( World Health Organization, 2013 ). Deaths attributed to malaria have declined by 32% between 2004 and 2010 ( Murray et al., 2012 ). This reduction has most likely been a result of the combined effects of economic development in endemic countries, urbanization and unprecedented financial support for malaria interventions from donors and the associated scaling up of malaria interventions. In sub-Saharan Africa, there was a 66-fold increase in the amount of official development assistance disbursed for malaria control, from $9.8 million in 2002 to $651.7 million in 2008 ( Akachi and Atun, 2011 ). Major funders include Roll Back Malaria, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the US President's Malaria Initiative and the World Bank's International Development Association ( Feachem et al., 2010a ) and funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been transformational in driving malaria elimination research. The increased funding has supported scaling up of preventive activities such as provision of long-lasting insecticide-treated bed nets (LLINs) and indoor residual spraying (IRS) as the principal vector control measure, as well as improving timely diagnosis using rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) and providing effective treatment with artemisinin-based combination therapy ( Gueye et al., 2012; Anderson et al., 2011 ). As a result of these gains, and renewed global interest, 32 of the 99 malaria-endemic countries are now pursuing an elimination strategy, with the remaining 67 aiming to control malaria ( Das and Horton, 2010; Feachem et al., 2010a, 2010b ).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Elsevier Ltd.
PY - 2015/6/1
Y1 - 2015/6/1
N2 - Movement of malaria across international borders poses a major obstacle to achieving malaria elimination in the 34 countries that have committed to this goal. In border areas, malaria prevalence is often higher than in other areas due to lower access to health services, treatment-seeking behaviour of marginalized populations that typically inhabit border areas, difficulties in deploying prevention programmes to hard-to-reach communities, often in difficult terrain, and constant movement of people across porous national boundaries. Malaria elimination in border areas will be challenging and key to addressing the challenges is strengthening of surveillance activities for rapid identification of any importation or reintroduction of malaria. This could involve taking advantage of technological advances, such as spatial decision support systems, which can be deployed to assist programme managers to carry out preventive and reactive measures, and mobile phone technology, which can be used to capture the movement of people in the border areas and likely sources of malaria importation. Additionally, joint collaboration in the prevention and control of cross-border malaria by neighbouring countries, and reinforcement of early diagnosis and prompt treatment are ways forward in addressing the problem of cross-border malaria.
AB - Movement of malaria across international borders poses a major obstacle to achieving malaria elimination in the 34 countries that have committed to this goal. In border areas, malaria prevalence is often higher than in other areas due to lower access to health services, treatment-seeking behaviour of marginalized populations that typically inhabit border areas, difficulties in deploying prevention programmes to hard-to-reach communities, often in difficult terrain, and constant movement of people across porous national boundaries. Malaria elimination in border areas will be challenging and key to addressing the challenges is strengthening of surveillance activities for rapid identification of any importation or reintroduction of malaria. This could involve taking advantage of technological advances, such as spatial decision support systems, which can be deployed to assist programme managers to carry out preventive and reactive measures, and mobile phone technology, which can be used to capture the movement of people in the border areas and likely sources of malaria importation. Additionally, joint collaboration in the prevention and control of cross-border malaria by neighbouring countries, and reinforcement of early diagnosis and prompt treatment are ways forward in addressing the problem of cross-border malaria.
KW - Disease Eradication
KW - Emigration and Immigration
KW - Humans
KW - Malaria/prevention & control
KW - Plasmodium species
KW - Malaria
KW - Migration
KW - International borders
KW - Population movement
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/84938086405
U2 - 10.1016/bs.apar.2015.04.002
DO - 10.1016/bs.apar.2015.04.002
M3 - Article
C2 - 26003036
SN - 0065-308X
VL - 89
SP - 79
EP - 107
JO - Advances in Parasitology
JF - Advances in Parasitology
ER -
SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being